A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains or may contain material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the photocopy reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure in exactly the form it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.
The present invention relates in general to a gaming device, and more particularly to a gaming device having multiple audio, video and audio-video exhibitions associated with related symbols to entertain players.
Gaming devices currently exist with bonus rounds in which a player has one or more opportunities to obtain bonus awards by selecting one or more masked awards from a group or plurality of masked awards displayed to the player. When the player chooses a masked award from the group, the game removes the mask and either awards the player with a bonus value or terminates the bonus round with a bonus terminator. The outcome depends upon whether the player selects an award or a terminator.
In the above game, the controller of the gaming device randomly places a predetermined number of masked awards and terminators in the group at the beginning of the bonus round and maintains the positioning until the bonus round terminates. When the player selects a masked award, the player receives the value of the award, and the game typically displays a message that the player may continue and enables the player to select another masked award. The player then selects another masked award, and the process continues until the player selects a masked terminator. European Patent Application No. EP 0 945 837 A2 filed on Mar. 18, 1999 and assigned on its face to WMS Gaming, Inc. discloses a bonus round of this type.
Various other known gaming devices provide bonus games where the awards are masked. In such games, the masked awards are generally represented by a symbol or image displayed to the player (often on a touch screen). When the player touches or selects a symbol, the game displays an audio, video or audio-video exhibition to entertain the player. Heretofore such, audio, video and audio video exhibitions have been identical for identical or related symbols displayed by the gaming device. The players can become bored based on this repetitive play of one or more audio, video or audio-video exhibitions.
The gaming device of the present invention includes a bonus round that provides multiple different audio, video or audio-video exhibitions associated with identical or related symbols provided by the gaming device. More particularly, the gaming device of the present invention provides a plurality of symbols or images in conjunction with a primary game (such as a slot machine game) or a secondary game (such as a bonus game). Several of these symbols are identical or related in some way (i.e., they are different images of the same character or object). Such identical or related symbols are hereinafter referred to as related symbols. The present invention provides each related symbol with different audio, video or audio-video exhibitions to entertain the player. The exhibitions associated with each related symbol may be predetermined or randomly determined from a group of exhibitions.
In the preferred embodiment, the gaming device randomly associates the exhibitions with the symbols. In one embodiment, a plurality of exhibitions are stored on the gaming device creating an exhibition library. Each time the player makes a selection, the controller randomly selects one of the exhibitions from the library and associates it with that selection (i.e., provides the exhibition to the player in an audio, video or audio-video format).
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a gaming device, wherein the game includes multiple audio, video or audio-video exhibitions associated with identical symbols.
Other objects, features and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following detailed disclosure, taken in conjunction with the accompanying sheets of drawings, wherein like numerals refer to like parts, elements, components, steps and processes.